by Steve Cappa

In our previous Marble Retreat Newsletter (Summer ’04), I wrote an article on some initial impressions regarding the struggles that hamper clergy and the church. In “Protestant Illusions,” I described how both Clergy and the Church seem to expect conduct befitting a “high priest,” someone who acts more as an intermediary between man and God. This is, of course, contrary to our Protestant values and places enormous spiritual, physical and emotional pressures upon our clergy. Furthermore, this pattern runs the risk of keeping us lay people distant from God, especially in our service to Him.

As an elaboration of this notion, in this article wish to address the fact that many clergy arrive for Christian counseling at Marble Retreat appearing to have forfeited what might be called "Normal Humanity." Often, they have few, if any, intimate friends, and it is the rare clergy person who boasts of some kind of hobby. Recreational time is equally rare! Moreover, they frequently appear profoundly constricted with all their emotions.

Clergy come to Marble Retreat for many reasons. However, the vast majority of the presenting issues revolve around some kind of moral failure. I am always privately curious about how we get ourselves into such horrific predicaments since, most certainly, none of us enter into God’s service with the intent of lapsing into moral failure! Perhaps one of the causes of these struggles is the fact that many, if not all clergy and clergy couples who arrive at our lodge, seem to have lost touch with the most basic features of our humanity. I have borrowed this notion of Normal Humanity from my friend and Marble Retreat Fellow, Dr. Don Harvey of Travecca University.

So how or why does this occur? These problems occur because of the enormous complex challenges that are common to clergy. As mentioned before, clergy carry great pressures to be many things to their people. Worse still, they are expected to be available 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. They are always watched by the church (us!) who expects them to be better than themselves, their families are supposed to be perfect, their sermons perfect, their service without flaw, their leadership superior, and so on. Within the life of clergy and their families, there is, in fact, very little room to be "normal humans." From this vantage point, it is of no surprise that burnout and moral failures are so rampant within clergy.

There is little in life that is more rewarding than serving people for Christ. It is a high calling from God and one of the most esteemed vocations in existence. However, it is also a potentially very challenging and lonely vocation!

So, what does it mean to be a "normal human?" Due to space restrictions, I will focus upon only one facet of this topic and will hope to address additional features at a later time. It is prudent to turn to the Bible for such definitions. Clearly, God made us in His image (Gen. 1:26). We can clearly make some inferences from this foundational passage. Though it is not clear how we are in His image, we obviously bear some resemblance to God. However, one resemblance we can see throughout scripture is that God has feelings, that He experiences emotions ranging from delight to outrage. Consider the following scripture:

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.” (Deuteronomy 5:8-10).

God is not a robot, devoid of expression! He has passions and He most certainly has bestowed these emotions upon us. We definitely share a resemblance with God in terms of emotions, and this resemblance helps us powerfully identify with Him and He with us. Like God, humans have available to them a full range of emotions. A baby born into the world is a very clear example of this. She cries with her whole being, she delights with her whole being, and, yes, she is outraged with her whole being. These characteristics in children are pure and raw, leaving us adults with little guesswork as to how they are feeling at any given particular time. This is, to be sure, "Normal Humanity," which, in part, involves the “unadulterated” feeling of and the expression of the full range of human emotion.

Unfortunately, this facet of Normal Humanity becomes far more complex as we “mature”. We quickly learn to hide our emotions and to outwardly express something different. As “mature adults," it is far more difficult to “read” a person because of this. This is particularly so with clergy. . . Because of the aforementioned pressures clergy and their families face, they frequently come to Marble Retreat terribly constrained with their emotions. This is often so true that they are not only constrained, but they frequently are unsure of exactly what or how they’re supposed to feel about their circumstances:

“My wife has been terminated by our church because of her affair, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to think or feel!"

This is a common report and emphasizes my point. Emotions are a very important tool of human expression and self-awareness. Our emotions not only tell others but they inform us of vital information. Emotions add great richness to our lives and to our thoughts and behaviors. They help us in our creativity and they help us in our decision making. Emotional expression is not unique to one gender versus the other. Scripture makes no distinction in this nor do we see it when we first come into the world.

It is my assertion that, with the help of emotional expression, we have the enormous potential to greatly identify with God and, as a result, be healthier people — "Normal People." Read it for yourself! Study God’s word and seek out the presence of emotional expression within the Scriptures and embrace the permission that Scripture grants us.